Trauma

I suppose when I was younger I fancied trauma as a dramatic device. I could proclaim of the changes in weather, the loss of a phone, the subtle betrayal of a barely registered lover to be causes of trauma. Devastating. Unbearable. How little I knew. My new trauma does not flash across my life with a fleeting vengeance, it sits with me always. No stranger to the everyday martyrdom of depression I almost didn't notice my sidekick at first. He fed so delicately that I almost laughed him to death, let him bide his time and drain his strength from the parts of me no cleansing liquor could reach. But there he was still, snuggled somewhere between my broken heart and my barely breathing lungs lived a monster without whom I could never survive. Trauma is not fear. It is not sadness nor anger, trauma is a myth all of its own and with this monster inside me I found I could not stay myself. I grew to accommodate his increasing size, his obnoxious habits and his scathing mannerisms. I grew around him like I was the cancer of his oak, I began to mutate into shapes I never thought possible. The woman who dragged this beast behind her would have been unrecognisable to the girl whose chest the monster made home. You see unlike pain the creature didn't let up. He stayed and fed and eventually became the thing that drove me forward, became my reason for being far beyond keeping my blood pumping. The monster was the reason for my thirst for revenge - he was just a mimicking puppet of a crueler beast but I longed for his blood all the same. Longed for a closure I could never reach as it did not really exist. Just like with the walls that divided nations, the chasms that maim each gorge - even when he passes, if that blissful morning shall ever arise, I'll never truly be rid of him. My trauma is me now.

If I stare hard enough into my pupils I catch glimpses of him cackling away. So codependent. My breath rattles along with his and I feel the shadows of his fingers extend through my nerves as he forces me towards more debauchery. He beckons so softly, with every silky motion he's a nightmarish ballet. We are reaching the closing act and I can't find him as easily these days. Even when I chase him through the bleak sister of my iris it's not enough. We have to meet properly. Soon to dive through acrid waters, I will splash next to him as the final threads of my body decline. 'Wanna play?' he'll sing. And I won't answer, but we'll both know it's my time.

3:40am

My favourite thing about her was the way her lips felt as I tried to inhale them in my desperation. A hard case with a fluid base, caramel cravings in every kiss. She was nothing to me in her image. Bizarre to the eyes and even more deluding in her speech; she spun circles around me with her words until every verb was a trip wire. But she never lay out her strong arms for me to fall in to - instead they led me forcefully into that darkness with her, pulling me by the strings straight through the solid danger of her heart’s abyss. I arose the other side gasping but breathing. I wiped my limbs clean and wept from the burns of her bleach. She cased me in her imperfection and I stung with each touch for though I was far from pure her vitriolic embrace corroded me beyond recognition. No matter of the strength of the chemical’s cleansing my skin glowed to her name, it smiled into the sun with every interjection of memory caused by cancerous E vitamins and dishonest confessions that sept through my membrane ever since I was blessed enough to observe her. 

Her eyes bled ice. She had a habit of starring into the sun and one day I caught a comet within her gaze. It spun stagnant beneath my cautious fingers and I flicked it to the earth as I couldn’t stand the rejection snuggled in her iris. She froze me there with the core of the world and although she would happily let my heart rot beneath my ribs; she was apprehensive to let me dance with traffic. She loved me more than a friend deserved, and buried her face beneath my curves. For that was where I needed her most; her anchor necessary to the shipwreck my heart was causing - the only part of the wreckage unable to watch me drown. I loved the way kindness creased her, how her face fought the sweetness that lay beneath every sweat drenched lick of her. She made my body burn with anticipation, only to be drenched in a molten sea of fingers and skin. How her flesh haunts me now that my sheets can’t be consumed by her. 

Yet she always fled by morning. Even if she lay within reach she was acres away; debating with demons and kissing cyanide. Unable to tell me I was smothering her by gorging on her. But her smile was such a miracle, extracted from a vat of misery I cherished every whisper of it, she could never blame me for hoarding her. Was I just to let her roam? To be free for the bite of another man’s hold? I had to tame her, or to take her. By the end nothing mattered except that I could call her my foal. Even when the waters cooled and her heart became as frosty as her stare I still smiled as she killed me with the ghost of her affection. 

It was over by the morning, but the hours she let me have her kept me going when the only other company I had was the silence of her vacant side of my nights. I longed for her to reach for me, to take my hand in her callus claw and beg that I maim her - brand her with my dedication so that she had no choice but to lay by my side as I finally gave up trying to glue myself back together. She’d gather my torn pieces and sew them up - I’d make a stylish throw for her dinner guests and never lament my purpose as I would have the blessing of her ownership. Her pride and joy; her inanimate toy. 

She must never know of the allegiance to her I’ve sworn. A dutiful addict I’ve kept her a secret even from herself. But in the moments when I feel her flesh convulse, in the flashes of panting bliss that belong only to us and the moon, I don’t need the mornings; the night is still, and she is near. 

All My Rivers Lead to Your Ocean.

Six in the morning,

You leave graveyard shift complete,

Scrubs off khakis on.

Terror

They tell you in medical school ‘Don’t listen to the terror’,

The sharp pull of a dizzy heart,

Recognizing the face of another.

The gloves can hide your human skin,

But they cannot shield your eyes,

Nor the flesh that you tear through.

Nightly sinew fights.

In the waiting room there sits a wife,

Three children clambering on.

She hushes them with vending machine promises –

Crinkled candy calm.

Inside her love my fingers rest,

Poised above a clot –

Never needless my needle nicks,

Blood a-gush.

Nick’s last beat.

Foil reflects the young ones smiles.

They bicker. Oh what to select.

War cry chorus; G19!

They weren’t to know of their father’s death,

Their eyes are just like his –

Not lifeless as my memory interjects.

Were I to take an educated guess;

I’d say their innards were much the same.

They did not know the blood was his.

Speckled across my breast.

They were choosing which sweet to digest.

They did not feel his organs halt,

As I did.

But there she remains,

Mother Fear,

Anguish etched into her brow.

The room passes slowly:

My funeral march on pause.

I let her cherish the blessed unknown,

For one more miraculous minute until she can’t.

They tell you ‘Don’t listen to the terror’ so that you keep a steady hand,

But what they forget to mention is in a hospital,

Terror is the only hope we have.

After a long shift,

You fall asleep at the wheel,

Only for a beat.

Crash

‘Stop looking at me like that’

Screams her softly furrowed brow.

The crease above her nose,

Her lips,

Her eyes,

Her all.

You can’t breathe.

When you look at her.

Snuggled next to the whites of her eyes,

Are pools of a royal blue.

So inviting in this summer heat,

You wish to splash within each iris.

Conquer her seas.

But you can’t breathe.

Down from the crest of her perfect nose,

Dwell two pouting lips.

Hues of new blood,

Oxidizing bliss in each kiss.

Red bled raw,

She’s all you have.

An angel walking on solid ground.

Metal scrapes a haunting choir,

Two rings entwined side-by-side,

Marriage is a heaven scape,

With this woman on your arm.

The flow of locks a golden tint,

The beat of music leads their dance,

Bu bum bu bum bu bum and stop.

Hands harmonious dolphins in play,

Rising to the sun.

You could get lost in her embrace,

You fade within your skull,

She sings to you as she lets you go.

You could not breathe.

Now all is lost.

The winter day cruel,

Darkness not allowing me,

Not to see you drown.

Eulogy

Regress from the blue,

How angry shades can pale,

As I broke through your swell

I was left with nothing at all

Arrived on the other end of the break.

To a reception of one.

Just black.

Cold hard screaming nothing.

Then black.

Where your eyes roll back,

You see the life locked in your skull.

A shackled mess of regret,

A heartbroken swell of girls.

Were you told you weren't to live,

Back you would have ran,

Kissed the blondes and stayed up late -

Grades, awards, all meant none.

Yet here you are, myself and I.

A half-lived wasted man,

Whose only impact on the world,

Was a fifty second news segment,

That his wife broke down to,

As the police had yet to reach her door.

I’m sorry for the life I lost,

Not just that already passed,

The children that I will not make,

The food,

The laughs,

The dance.

I will decay into the soil,

I shall be scattered amongst the grass.

Then day-by-day I’ll be forgotten,

When all is nothing,

And all is black.

Why Greetings new soul,

Welcome to the stardust realm,

I have been waiting.

Epilogue

I am The Moon, I rule The Sky,

Where all souls converge in assent,

Some call me ‘Reaper Grim’,

Others ‘God’,

Others ‘Death’ –

Your souls are fuel for my lunar base,

I feed them to my cogs,

And here eternally you whir,

Controlling tides,

And guiding night.

I am The Tide, I rule The Sea,

All your rivers,

To my ocean, lead.

And there life dwells, beyond your eyes,

Perfected over eons of time.

For depths untouched by human war,

But raped by tanks from human shores.

I gave you life,

I let you be.

But drop by drop –

You’re poisoning me.

I am The Sun, I rule The Earth,

Allow for you to breathe,

Warm your crops,

Your skin,

Your world,

And ask for nothing in return.

Although we may seem worlds apart,

We’re not so different you and I,

Both are finite,

And what you don’t know yet;

Is my time has come,

And soon will thine.

My dark side is blessed,

As it never has to watch,

The sickness of Earth.